Page 34 of Endless Obsession

“Good for you. After that bullshit Nate pulled, you deserve to have a man waiting on you.” Jaz hops out, waiting for me as I follow her. “You deserve to have some time to do whatever the fuck you want, honestly.”

“I told him I wasn’t looking for anything serious,” I admit. “That I just got out of a relationship and I want to explore my options for a little while.”

“What did he say to that?”

“That it was just dinner. In like—a teasing way.” I can’t help the small smile at the corner of my lips, remembering that. It made me like him more, the easy way that he brushed past that, as if he wasn’t put off at all by my reticence. As if he’s willing to give me the space I need—or work for what he wants.

I want to be worked for. I want someone to prove that he’s going to do what it takes to make me happy—that my happiness matters to him. I want someone who is going to put in the effort. Because the more I look back at my relationship with Nate, the more holes I see in it. The more things I see now where he just didn’t try, where he assumed I’d always be there waiting when he had time for me. And if I’m going to get serious with anyone in the future, I don’t want that in my next relationship.

I want someone who would burn down heaven and hell for me, if that’s what it took for us to be together.

And I want someone who can make me feel like the man at Masquerade did. Who makes me feel those flames between us, every night that we’re together. I’m still not sure that I believe it exists in reality, but that night was enough to make me wonder.

To make me want to look for it, before I resign myself to the idea that it doesn’t exist in a real-life relationship.

The tapas restaurant we’re grabbing happy-hour drinks at is one of my favorites. It’s a rustic, open-floor concept, all dark woods and iron, with huge floor-to-ceiling windows that let all the light in, flooding the space. The seating is an eclectic arrangement of low-to-the-ground couches in bright, jewel-colored velvets, with dark wooden tables set between them. With the weather being as nice as it is, some of the windows are opened, letting in the brisk, fall-scented air.

Zoe and Sarah are already seated on a mustard-yellow velvet couch, drinks in hand. Sarah is still in her work clothes—a sleek, fitted pantsuit in dark blue, with a cream-colored silk shell blouse underneath it and her blonde hair neatly wrapped up in a bun atop her head. Zoe looks every bit the fashionista, her wild, black ringlet hair in a cloud around her head, wearing a streetwear-styled khaki cargo skirt with an asymmetrical hem and assorted pockets, along with a dark green, one-shouldered tight top that shows off her toned stomach and shoulders. She has a cocktail in one hand, and Sarah is sipping at a glass of wine.

“We ordered a charcuterie board while we were waiting,” Sarah says, taking another sip of her red wine. “It should be here in a minute. Charlotte! I’m so glad you made it.” She gives me a sympathetic smile, and I know what she’s thinking—that she’s surprised I feel up to socializing. But the truth is that the last thing I want is to be stuck at home alone, thinking about all the reasons why my relationship with Nate failed. I don’t even want to be at home thinking about the possibility of this new date with Ivan. I want to be out with my friends, feeling normal. Feeling like my life hasn’t changed all that much just because I’m now single.

“I hope you found a way to put that dress to good use,” Zoe says, tilting her cocktail glass at me. “That was too hot of an outfit to let it go to waste.”

“Oh, she did,” Jaz says with a smirk before I can stop her, reaching over to take the gin fizz that the server brings her. I ordered a glass of pinot noir, and I raise it to my mouth to try to hide the flush on my cheeks.

“Oh?” Sarah looks intrigued, grinning at me. “Do tell.”

Out of our close foursome, Sarah is the one most like me. She’s been single for a few months, but her last relationship lasted three years. She’s more adventurous than I am—she’s traveled out of the country, for instance—but she also tends to play things on the safe side. And we have a similar style. Sleek, buttoned up, conservative.

Zoe is more like Jaz. Wilder, more impulsive, impetuous, fashionable. Extroverted, whereas Sarah and I tend to be more introverted. Even our tastes in food and drink tend to run similarly. Zoe wouldn’t think twice about hearing where I went wearing that dress, but I can only imagine the look on Sarah’s face.

I don’t know if I can get out of admitting it now, though.

I take another sip of my wine, mentally trying to run through all of the ways I could turn this conversation to some other topic, but I’ve already hesitated too long. Sarah grins. “Okay, now I know it must be really good.”

“Come on,” Zoe pleads. “Tell us. I want to know it didn’t just hang sadly in your closet.” She bats her long eyelashes at me, and I sigh, glaring sideways at Jaz, who is grinning unrepentantly.

“I went to Masquerade,” I mumble around the lip of my glass. “Or, more accurately, Jaz took me there.”

“I did.” Jaz doesn’t look the slightest bit embarrassed by the fact that she went there, or the fact that her taking me there implies she’s been there often enough to introduce someone new to it. But then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least Zoe already knew about that side of her. Zoe is equally adventurous and wild, and she’d be the type to readily not only listen to those stories, but join in.

Jaz is my best friend, but clearly, my reticence to do and try new things led her to never tell me about those adventures. Not until recently. Clearly, she thought it would make me so uncomfortable that she didn’t share that part of herself with me.

It makes me wonder what else my friends don’t tell me, because they think I might be shocked or judgmental. If there are other things I don’t know about the people I care most about, because I’ve always been too reserved to share them with.

I don’t want to make Sarah feel like that. I don’t want my friends to continue to not be open with me—and that means not holding back with them, either.

“What is that?” Sarah asks, and there’s a knowing look on Zoe’s face, a curl to the side of her mouth that tells me she does know exactly what Masquerade is.

“It’s a club,” I manage, feeling my cheeks heat a little. I want to be brave enough to tell my friends about my adventure, but I suddenly feel horrifically embarrassed, thinking about what that means. That they’ll know I hooked up with a stranger. I didn’t have sex with him, not completely, but I did things with him that I wouldn’t have thought I would have done with anyone I didn’t know, not all that long ago. I did, arguably, more than I have with men I’ve been in relationships with. More than I did with Nate.

No one I’ve ever dated made me feel the way the stranger at Masquerade did. And I’ve never come like that with anyone before.

“It must be an interesting club, to make you blush like that,” Sarah says, smirking, and I see Jaz look at me out of the corner of my eye.

“What’s more interesting is that Charlotte has a date,” she interjects quickly, and I feel a deep wave of relief—and gratitude, that Jaz picked up on how uncomfortable I am and changed the subject for me.

“What?” Zoe and Sarah both immediately look at me, eyes wide. “With who?”

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